Appendix K. . .Science and Behavior
Every educated person in today's world needs to understand the nature
of science. . .its fundamental assumptions, its basic methods, and its
limitations. Science has brought many changes to the quality of life;
college students of today can hardly imagine a world without automobiles,
boom boxes, and television. There is certainly much more to come.
Whether you plan to be a scientist working on the cutting edge of
knowledge, or whether you are just going along for the ride, you should
know what science is, and is not.
Scientists spend a lot of time reading and writing about results of
research, but science is not knowledge. Knowledge is the result of
science, not science itself. Scientists often work with complicated
apparatus and instruments, but science is not equipment. Equipment is the
tool of science, not science itself. Pared to the bone, science is
method. Science is a way of thinking, a way of asking and then answering
questions, a way of understanding events taking place in our bodies and in
the world around us. Science is not the only way to do these things; it
may not always be the best way. But it is a way with powerful
implications.
During the last fifty years, the methods of science have been
extended to the mind and behavior. Some of the results of this enterprise
have been the principles of learning and memory stated in this book. An
even greater outcome will result if you can learn to adopt a scientific
attitude toward yourself and others. You don't have to be a scientist to
think scientifically. Science cannot answer all of your questions about
life; there is need for philosophy, religion, art, and the humanities.
But where the scientific method applies, it replaces ignorance, myth, and
superstition with empirical knowledge.
To begin adopting the scientific attitude, you first become a
skeptic. You don't believe anything just because it was written in a book
or because some important person said it. You don't even accept things
that seem intuitively obvious. You become, first and foremost an
empiricist. . .a person who is convinced only by evidence based on
objective research. You may say, "According to so-and-so, something is
true" but you don't necessarily believe so-and-so unless the claim is back
up with empirical facts.
Popular Misconceptions
There are many popular misconceptions, old wives tales, familiar sayings,
proverbs, and rules of thumb. Indeed, there are so many that it would take
several very large books to try to dispel all of them. I shall illustrate
a few for the purpose of convincing you that being a skeptic about "common
knowledge" is appropriate. You may or may not believe the following
propositions, but you have probably heard about them and perhaps wondered
about the truth.
1. You can teach old dogs new tricks. It is difficult to teach anyone of
any age a new trick that requires changing a well learned habit, but
learning ability normally survives to a very old age.
2. High sexual activity in youth does not diminish future sexual
activity. Indeed, people whose sexual needs are high in adolescence, tend
to remain that way.
3. Practice does not make perfect. Because you learn what you practice
the way you practice, only perfect practice makes perfect.
4. You do not catch a cold from being wet and cold. You catch a cold by
contact with a virus transmitted from another person.
5. One does not contract a venereal disease from a toilet seat. Unless an
open sore makes contact with an infected seat, VD is transmitted only by
sexual activity.
6. As a rule, girls are better in verbal skills, and boys are better in
math skills. Both girls and boys can be good (or bad) in both, but there
is some biological relationship with gender.
7. Traits do not always balance out. Pretty/handsome people also tend to
be healthier and more intelligent.
8. Remembering trivial facts does not waste space in memory. Memory
capacity is unlimited, but trivia may sometimes interfere with recalling
important information.
9. Sexual activity does not use up an especially vital energy.
Record performances in races and games have occurred shortly after a sex
act (masturbation or intercourse).
10. People are not especially bad at remembering names. Memory is
as good (or bad) for names as for other information. Many people are
especially bad at attending to and hence learning names.
11. Slow learners do not remember more of what they learn than fast
learners. If anything, the opposite is true.
12. Having superstitions is not a sign of stupidity. Everyone tends
to infer causality from observed correlations.
13. Alcohol is not a stimulant, even in small amounts. Alcohol may
lower one's inhibitions, making one appear to be stimulated.
14. High motivation does not help one solve complex problems. The
more difficult the material, the lower the level of motivation that is
optimal for learning and problem solving.
15. People of the same gender are more concerned about the size of
your genitals than people of the opposite gender.
To the latter, it is what you do with your equipment that matters most.
16. Eating chocolate and junk food does not cause one to have a poor
complexion. Blemishes are a result of hormonal condition and/or poor
habits of skin care.
Determinism
The most fundamental assumption of science is determinism. . .the
belief that everything that happens is determined by other events. A
scientist assumes that there is a natural cause that explains why this
thing happened in this way at this time. Sometimes, the explanation is
obscure, and sometimes an element of chance has to be included in
understanding events. For example, your very existence was caused by the
fertilization of an egg in your mother's body by a sperm from your
father's body. However, that particular egg and sperm were only one of
many millions that your parents could produce, and hence the fact that you
are the particular person you are was determined by chance.
It is this element of chance that distinguishes determinism from
pre-determinism. This latter is the belief that everything that ever has
or ever will happen is somehow programmed in advance. According to such a
view, we are all simply acting out our pre-determined roles while our
destinies unfold from day to day. Science does not demand such a
fatalistic view of life.
What science does demand is the belief that nature is lawful and
that, as scientists discover the laws of nature, we will be able to
predict the consequences of various events. Scientific laws are of the
form: If event A, then event B. If the law is true, then you can predict
the occurrence of B whenever A happens, and you can control the occurrence
of B if you can control the occurrence of A.
When a scientific law appears to have very wide generality, it is
called a principle. For example, one well established principle of
behavior is this: If reward is scheduled at a regular time, organisms tend
to postpone responding until shortly before the next scheduled reward.
This principle was first clearly demonstrated in research on hungry rats
responding for food reward. But it applies to all species of organisms
with all kinds of responses for all kinds of rewards. A relevant instance
is the behavior of most students. Exams (rewards) are usually scheduled
at regular times; hence studying (responding) is typically put off until
shortly before the exam.
The behavior sciences attribute behavior to some combination of three
general factors: genetic nature, past experience, and present
circumstances. The goal of such sciences is to discover what factors are
responsible for some behavior of interest. Consider, for example, that I
am now interested in your survival as a college student. What are the
factors that determine the likelihood of your success? There is no
denying that native intelligence is relevant; obviously, educational
preparation is critical; and various features of the college environment
(e.g., size of classes, living arrangements) importantly affect
performance. Scientists seek to discover those factors.
The Experimental Method
In their quest to discover what is caused by what, scientists
frequently use a basic experimental design. The logic of the design is
very simple, but doing it is sometimes very difficult. It begins with an
hypothesis, which is a statement that factor X is one of the causes of
event Y. To find out if the statement is true, a scientist conducts an
experiment in which there are two conditions. One condition includes
factor X, the other does not. If event Y occurs only in the condition
including factor X, one can conclude that the hypo_ thesis is true, that
factor X does indeed cause event Y.
The difficulty in using the experimental method is in insuring that
factor X is the only difference between the two conditions. Let me
illustrate the method and the difficulty with a common question by
students: Should one study with background music playing? We first state
the question as an hypothesis: Background music is beneficial to
learning. To test that hypothesis, we need to have students study with
music and without music, and then somehow measure
how much they learned. Conceptually, the design is clear; practically,
it is very difficult.
First we must be sure that the material being learned with music is
equally difficult as that being learned without music. Perhaps the
hypothesis is true for some kinds of material and not for others, and so
we probably should include several kinds. Perhaps the effects depends on
the type of music, so we should also include several types of music. The
result may depend on whether the student usually has music playing while
studying, so we will need to take past experience into consideration.
For that matter, some students may be biased in such a way that they work
harder with music in order to prove that it is beneficial. Then there are
many other factors to be balanced: the time of day, state of hunger,
importance of the material, etc.
The fact that it may be difficult to satisfy the everything else equal
requirement of the experimental method should not dissuade one from trying
to use it. It is the best way to avoid superstitious beliefs. For
example, you may have seen a commercial that some cereal will improve your
performance. You may then try the cereal and, by chance, do better than
usual. Should this happen more than once, you may be firmly convinced
that the commercial was true. Perhaps it is true but as a scientist, you
would want to compare several cereals under nearly identical testing
conditions. You can learn a lot about yourself and the world around you
by adopting the scientific method.
Objectivity
One critical feature of science is objectivity. To be objective
means to be free of personal biases, to evaluate an event without any
prejudice one way or the other. We all have subjective, this is,
internal, private feelings and desires. In many ways, our subjective
selves are the true essence of life. But these are not in the realm of
science, because science can only deal with publicly observable events.
True science is a public enterprise in which anyone else can repeat the
same experiment and obtain the same results.
Hence in adopting a scientific attitude, you need to learn to be as
objective as possible. I can recall when I was trying to justify my
alcoholic behavior. I managed to convince myself that I could do almost
everything better after having a few drinks than when I was sober. This
was mostly wishful thinking. Although there really are a few things where
the fear reducing effects of alcohol can improve one's performance, in
most cases, alcohol only makes one think s/he is doing better. That is
why a scientist seeks objective measures, ones that are not influenced by
subjective biases.
Now here's the twist: You can adopt the scientific attitude to_ ward
your own subjective experiences. Because no one else can observe them,
they are not a part of true science. But nevertheless, you can attempt to
be objective about your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. For example, in
the first chapter of this book, I urged you to make a commitment to learn
these materials. Regardless of whether or not you sign a contract, you are
the only one who knows just how committed to doing well in college you
really are. Being objective in the context of your subjective feelings
means not kidding yourself.
There is an important psychological reason to "know yourself." As
first pointed out by Freud, unconscious desires, intentions, and opinions
frequently surface as slips of the tongue, accidents, missed appointments,
and forgotten information. The best way to avoid such embarrassing and
potentially dangerous consequences is to understand your true inner self.
As one example, a woman who realizes that she really hates her father is
less likely to "lose" a watch that he gave her. More dramatically, a man
who realizes that he is really down in the dumps over being jilted is less
likely "accidentally" to fail to make a curve at high speed and end up a
traffic fatality. Science as method has personal relevance for everyday
life.
Correlational Evidence
Two things are correlated if they tend to vary together so that the
more there is one, the more (or less) there is of the other. The Appendix
L explains correlation in greater detail and I recommend you read that if
you are not familiar with the concept. The basic idea is simple enough.
Height is correlated with weight because taller people tend to weigh more.
Grades are correlated with intelligence because smarter people tend to do
better in school. Smoking is correlated with lung cancer because people
who smoke tend to die early from lung cancer. Whether you call it that or
not, you are undoubtedly familiar with many natural correlations.
In many cases, scientists cannot use the experimental method be_
cause of practical or ethical limitations. Suppose, for example, that I
wanted to find out if marijuana impairs learning ability. To do an
experiment would be not be legal and not possible because some people
would not be willing to participate. As another example, suppose I wanted
to find out if there are racial differences in basic learning ability.
There is no way to do an experiment that insures that every thing except
racial heritage is equal. In these and many other cases, the best one can
do is look for a correlation.
There are two important scientific points about correlations. A
correlation does not establish causality. The correlation may be due to
some other causal factor. Nevertheless, a correlation is useful to make
predictions. It makes no difference why the events are correlated, if
they vary together, you can use one to predict the other.
Conclusions
Some people characterize science as a kind of game. To play the
game, one begins with the assumption that nature is lawful, that some
elegant set of principles "makes the world go round." The object of the
game is to discover those laws so we can better understand the things that
happen. Thus, early humans naturally believed that the earth was
stationary and the sun moved around it. What could be more intuitively
obvious than that? The first scientists met with great opposition to
their evidence that days and nights were caused by a spinning earth.
Much of the opposition, then and now, comes from the mistaken belief
that science is incompatible with religion. Science can never answer,
even in principle, ultimate questions about the meaning and purpose of
life. Science does not resolve moral and ethical issues. Specifically, if
your religion condemns eating certain foods, working on Sunday,
masturbating, or dancing, your beliefs override scientific knowledge about
the natural effects of such behaviors. Science sometimes steps on the
toes of certain religious beliefs, but it poses no threat to the essence
of religion.
For example, the scientific theory of evolution is incompatible with
the Biblical story of creation. However, evolution doesn't ex_ plain
creation. Scientists may believe that the human species did not result
from a separate act of creation, but the material of life and the process
of evolution had to be created somehow. Science can relieve religion of
having to ascribe natural events to miracles.
The quest for scientific knowledge is the search for causality, for cause
and effect. A scientific hypothesis is a guess that some event of
interest (the dependent variable) is caused, at least in part, by some
other event (the independent variable). If conditions can be arranged to
observe the dependent variable both with and with_ out the independent
variable, the hypothesis can be tested. If there is a causal
relationship, the outcome will show a difference.
You can use this method in order better to understand your own
behavior. In doing so, you need to learn to be objective with regard to
your subjective experiences as well as your actual performance in any task
of interest to you. In order to get some practice, you may wish to do the
experiment described in the boxes 8.10.9 and 8.10.10. You need to try to
control everything except the time of day (and the things normally
associated with time of day, such as hunger, fatigue, drowsiness). If you
normally lead a fairly regular life, it is quite probable that you will
discover a stable, cyclical biorhythm that identifies you as a "morning
person" or an "evening person."
You do not have to be a scientist to notice correlations. When you are
performing well (poorly), you naturally look for things that could account
for it. . .your mood, the presence of others, whether you have been
"good," the weather, and perhaps even your horoscope. A scientist starts
with the same observations, but then tries to find out whether there
really is a causal relationship. As a result, many popular
misconceptions, adages, and superstitions are proven false.
On Self-Control
Most of us were taught early on that we were responsible for
our actions, that as adults, we possess a free will with the power
to choose between right and wrong. Of course, animals, children,
and the insane are not held responsible for their actions; we view
their behavior as being determined by natural forces, so they can
not be expected to show self-control. But civilized adults should
have the will power to behave in an ethical and moral manner.
A belief in determinism is contradictory with the notion of a
free will. If your behavior is completely determined by genetic
nature, past experience, and present conditions, there is nothing
residual left for you to make an autonomous decision. Indeed, it
is not even clear how you could know whether a decision was really
"yours." To be sure, you may feel that you decided to do some_
thing, but perhaps the decision was actually determined by natural
forces as surely as actions by animals, children, and the insane.
One of the invaluable hallmarks of science is recognizing when
a question cannot be answered empirically. If there is no way to
substantiate the existence, or non-existence of free will, it is a
matter of belief. Whether or not you are predisposed to believe in
free will, you should understand how you control your own behavior.
_______________________
Theorem of Self-Control
A person can control one's own behavior by
learning to emit and obey cue-producing responses.
__________________________________________________
A "cue-producing response" is anything you can do to tell yourself
what to do. The most common cue-producing response is language.
For example, when you buy something, you count out enough money to
pay for it. When following directions, you tell yourself first to
turn this way, then that. Voluntary self-control is simply giving
yourself orders and then obeying them.
This means that self-control is learned. Although it may seem
that voluntary control of your fingers, arms, legs, and even the
muscles used in speaking just "come naturally," you actually had
to learn how to make your body do what you intend. Where you have
not yet learned self-control, you can still learn! As with all
habits, you learn self-control by practicing self-control. By all
odds, the most important advice I can give anyone is this Never
disobey yourself. If you tell yourself to do something, do it! If
you tell yourself not to do something, don't do it! To make this
rule practicable, you should never give yourself an order you can
not obey. Always ask a lot of yourself, but never too much.